Daylight
by her-eyes-fiery-pinpricks
Summary: Indeed, they're free to return any time they please, any time their heart is feeling especially heavy: but never like this, never like how Finn's feeling right now, how he has this fuzziness in his fingers and buzzing in his ear, wonderful lightness and the feeling of invincibility, how he can go anywhere and do anything because he has no problems, no fear, no limits— OS, K . Sad.


**An IP story ;) First reviewer gets to learn how I intended this to go, but decided I simply couldn't. **

**This one was inspired by "Daylight" by Maroon 5. I don't need to explain, because A) Most of you follow me on tumblr B) I think it's clear once you go on.**

**I own nothing. I don't think naming this the title of the song is entirely punishable. Right? But if it is, tell me _nicely. _Please and thank you.**

**For Jessie, who FOR ONCE DIDN'T TELL ME THIS SONG MWAHAHAH**

**Daylight**

His eyes open.

A wave of nostalgia catapults towards him; a flash back, from the past: he breathes with 13 year old breaths, feels with 13 year old fingers, sees with 13 year old eyes that had been so innocently preserved and so pure compared to now.

The sky, so black, so unforgivable, swallows him whole until he has to peel his eyes away from it. Lying on the cold, hard ground. Like so many times before. The way it scratches his exposed skin is familiar. Comforting.

His hand is still entwined with hers, the same way it was when they lay down. Days have passed, in the midst of all this celebration. All he'd be doing dreading, dreading, dreading this night, when he would say goodbye. But her face is too beautiful to his occupy his mind along with dismay. She's lying down too, her hand stretched out, shiny black hair splayed on the ground, squeezing his fingers to breaking. But he doesn't care. When there's tears threatening to spill, you don't give those kinds of things power.

"You ok?" he asks, not paying mind to the fact he's still lying on the street.

Amanda nods her head, her face stoic- not giving any sound.

Finn's admittedly not the boy—man—he was ten years ago. He gets up and glances down on his muted orange fitted shirt, muscles sticking out that weren't even there in his middle and high school days. Those daylights…seem so _distant_. Reality reminds him they're a couple people away. He just needs one look at his wife to be thrown back into the mess of his adolescent years. The pain, the grief. The love, the amazing weightlessness.

He's gentlemanly now—he helps Amanda up, taking her forearms, and stands facing her. He gazes in.

So many memories.

A soft kiss on the cheek. "Let's go."

So they walk, hand in hand, to the palace ever piercing the sky, not seeing but _feeling_ the reminiscences. They don't need to look into those fateful events to replay the emotions coursing through them. Maybe it was because of the mind games played, the tests on brain power that took up most of their trials and tribulations. It's slowly wearing away their hearts. They can feel the legitimate strain that's being put on their core whenever these things were remembered. The Keepers can swear on anything…their hearts are actually _breaking._

The day Finn had heard that the DHIs were being disabled, he might had stayed silent for five minutes before the next words that had come out of his mouth. "R—N—Right _now_?" No, the controllers of the server had said. No, they'll be given a month or so to "tie up the loose ends". A quick reorganization of the office papers and the conversation had been over. A concerned trembling of Amanda's ringed finger had shown Finn how desperate this really had been: their _childhood. _Being discarded as if it had to be.

Those "loose ends", of course, are the other DHIs: but there isn't any need for reuniting. They live close enough to see each other on a daily basis. Coffee mornings and laughing nights. It's an unending circle Finn adored. But Finn knows as well as anyone: seeing his friends under the starlight was a world away from under the sun.

Finn glances down to his glittering, sputtering hand, almost translucent, and can't keep in that soft chuckle. So strange. And yet so ordinary.

Amanda's shivering. "Cold?" Finn asks.

"Mm-mm." Shakes her head. Her black leather jacket, worn by the years, as old as the Fairlie barracks stories tell, provides Finn with comfort of the old days. Those silent nights when she would come over his house and they would sit in the basement and not say a word, but screaming a million exclaims of anxiety within their minds. Then she would get up and leave. Sometimes there was a "goodbye".

The stress level was too high then. They were just kids, and they were supposed to be mindless, innocent children. But the past is the past, and it can't be redone.

He sees the most unlikely couple ambling along the edge on the castle gates. Against all odds, after being told over and over and over again it would never happen,_ it did_, and she now wears the ring. Charlene and Maybeck are going to be married in a few months. Finn can't help but laugh happily at the sight of them, madly in love, and never stopping.

Finn calls over to them and they answer with waves, and they run over to him and Amanda. They seem to be enjoying this night: Charlie was in the middle of a laugh once they got to the newlyweds. Finn didn't know how there could be smiles regarding the world surrounding them.

"So?" Finn says, not quite knowing how to begin this final meeting.

"There's Willa," Amanda says, pointing to behind Charlene. Somber faces, Willa and Philby walk toward them. This couple was the "mother" to all of them, as they were first engaged, first married, and first…smartest. They've made a good life for themselves. Philby's working at some scientific place Finn can't pronounce. Willa's balancing medical school and the community theater. And when Amanda asks, once hugs have been exchanged, "How's the little one?" Willa instinctively places a hand on her stomach and smiles.

And Jess appears to, walking from the same direction of the married couple, her arms folded, head down, eyes downcast. She sniffles once she reaches the Keepers. "Hey."

Silence. It's filled with so many thoughts.

"Seemed like it would never end…" Maybeck remarks, and the Keepers know he's talking about the struggle. Between the Overtakers and the kids. Those days seemed to stretch out in front of them. Endless. Now they're there, standing in a safe park in a safe world. Thought it would never happen.

"But here we are," Philby says, a protective arm around Willa. The ghost of the accent hasn't left, only grown hazier. "Still standing."

"Look," Amanda softly whispers in Finn's ear, as chills race down his spine when he looks back to the Emporium. And it all comes rushing back—that blistering day after school with mixed signals from her and anxious comments from him. What he remembers is her giggling face pressed against the window in the bus, her concerned face outside of the Haunted Mansion, her cold stare in the dark of the ride that had made him shiver as they ran to the exit door. It makes his cheeks red. To think of that afternoon, their first mission, _together_—it's something else.

"It's not like we'll never come back, guys," Charlene says, logical as always.

"Yeah, that's true, but…not this." Amanda answers, looking up and around at the glowing stars.

Finn's brought even down deeper as he hears that. Indeed, they're free to return any time they please, any time their heart is feeling especially heavy: but never like this, never like how Finn's feeling _right now_, how he has this fuzziness in his fingers and buzzing in his ear, wonderful lightness and the feeling of invincibility, how he can go anywhere and do anything because he has no problems, no fear, _no limits_—

He knows it can't be replicated.

It just comes out. He feels like he needs a moment, with her, remembering everything that has ever happened to the both of them.

"Have you guys…gone to everywhere you want to?" he asks, edging his way to the question.

Fiancee/Husband looks at Fiance/Wife. Jess nods. "We got here a lot earlier, don't forget," Maybeck says. Philby agrees.

"I just got here, but I'm okay," Jess says somberly.

"Can we…um…we'll catch up," Finn says, nodding goodbye and taking a confused Amanda along.

Finn's heart is absorbed in his memories. It's almost as his feet move impulsively, guiding the lovers to their destination. There's a magnet pulling them closer and closer and closer.

There's a few moments of forced silence until she speaks. "Where are we going?"

"To the place," he says. "Where it happened."

They're so close together, he can feel her face turn back to the street and her sigh. He doesn't know if it's exasperation or sorrow.

He almost forgets. Four days ago. The bright lights and sore feet and endless feasting and her sparkling, moist eyes. Their wedding. It was the epitome of perfect. It surpassed perfect. All his life, he's waited for that moment, right there, when they became truly each other's.

Together forever. That's what they've promised. Finn intended to keep that promise. How hard will it be, now, when war isn't the thing that's creating the unity?

And they're there. Somehow, his feet have lead them to the place of their first kiss—to be exact, the first kiss they were both conscious for. Finn catches the glint of the black water surrounding him from the corner of his eye. Tom Sawyer Island.

And it all happens at once. Finn's filled with a swell of wistfulness, warmth spread from his glowing head to his glowing shoes, and he sees her expression of delighted surprise, her night-sky eyes widening, with thousands of twinkles dancing in celebration.

He remembers the words he spoke to her before the kiss. How he had been _so so_ scared. How he hadn't been sure if she was going to wake up the next dawn. It was the most terrified he'd been all his life, the paralyzing, cringing kind of horror. And that moment of_ forgetting_…

This moment…almost ten years old, still lives today. And he can't feel more grateful for this minute with her.

"I'll…I'll never forget…" he says, but his throat closes up, and he's overcome with emotion, and she is too, so their tears merge as they kiss. And in that moment Finn's convinced that all kisses drown worry and overlook hate. Because it didn't matter if it was the last night of being a DHI or the first night of their love…all was and is immaculate in that moment.

Finn picks her up and spins her around, their lips still pressed against each other. He doesn't care if the despair swallows him now…because it's almost as if he can never be sad again.

They finally break away, breathing heavy. She's laughing. He's smiling. The moon and stars are smiling, too, ever sparkling, even if the Kingdom Keepers aren't sparkling too.

She's crying. It's happy tears, nostalgic tears, tears of all the beautiful memories. And he can feel it. Radiating from the street themselves, those years live forever past the gates.

Finn's not afraid of when his eyes open. Because she'll still be there. And the past is only a little bit buried under the present.

**So I may have cried. Review? Concrit is accepted and appreciated. ;)**


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